Annual Scientific Meeting Travel Grant Recipient Report

Tom Su

Tom is a neuroscience student in the first year of his PhD at UNSW. He is currently being supervised by A/Prof Gila Moalem-Taylor and Dr Felix Aplin to investigate the use of peripheral DC nerve block as a treatment for chronic pain.

Author contact details: tom.su@unsw.edu.au

APS 2022 – A novel experience for this 1st year PhD student

The Australian Pain Society 42nd Annual Scientific Meeting was the first conference I ever attended. In the weeks leading up to it, I was constantly looking forward to experiencing this format of event, as well as to meeting researchers with similar interests and hearing all about their projects. On top of that, I was scheduled to deliver both a 3-minute thesis and a free paper presentation, so there were definitely some nerves mixed in with excitement.

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The first two days of the conference proper were like a whirlwind of new information. The three topical sessions I attended were themed around placebo/nocebo, osteoarthritis, and multiple sclerosis. All three of these sessions were fascinating, and I was very impressed by the quality of all the presentations I saw. On top of that were all of the amazing posters on display during lunch! Again, I was blown away by the variety of research topics being showcased (and I did enjoy the free lunches as well). On Tuesday afternoon I gave a free paper presentation in Session 6, which outlined our preliminary findings on the potential of charge-unbalanced electric currents in pain relief. In that session, though, I was particularly interested by Mr Michael Ferraro’s presentation on his meta-analysis of existing spinal cord stimulation treatments for chronic pain, which highlighted the necessity for more independent investigation into intervention efficacies in an industry largely funded by invested third-parties.

On Sunday, I attended the pre-conference workshop held by the Basic Pain Research Special Interest Group (BPR SIG). As someone whose time in research has been pretty short, I was quietly stunned by the breadth of research being presented, and the many approaches and techniques being used to investigate different aspects of pain. I particularly enjoyed the presentations by Drs Nathan Fiore and Lipin Loo, who talked about the roles of sexspecific microglia and RNA transcription in neuropathic pain, respectively. I also gave my three-minute thesis during this workshop, and won the competition (which I was definitely a bit surprised by, since I thought all of the entries were amazing!). In the evening we headed to Post Street Social for a SIG dinner, where I got to chat with lots of incredible people about their labs and their research interests, such as A/Prof Wendy Imlach at Monash, A/Prof Brett Graham at UON, and A/ Prof Peter Shortland at Western Sydney. A few of them even gave me really helpful advice to implement in my own project.

APS 2022 ended strong with a bevy of great plenary speakers on Wednesday. Of all the talks I heard during the conference, a strong contender for my personal favourite was A/ Prof Brett Graham’s, in which he discussed modern perspectives on spinal gating. It was very accessible but didn’t seem to compromise on accuracy, and his confidence in narrating a video playing behind him was a great touch.

From the diverse range of speakers and topics to the fun after-hours activities, tasty nibbles, and beautiful Hobart harbour, APS 2022 really delivered as my first ever conference and left me keen for more. I’m very grateful to the APS, whose travel grant helped enable me to attend, and I’m looking forward to seeing everyone at APS 2023!

Declaration:

Tom Su has nothing to declare.